Chamomile
by Oldflowers
Summary: Black skyscrapers stood like a bundle of daggers, dark as smoke, dismal as dust, nestled in their own painful part of Panem around a cavernous lake. It was all solar panels and nuclear plants in the district that lay just outside of the Capitol. Nonetheless, as morose and as easy as it was to forget, District Five was still Finch's home.


My classroom is located in a building as high as the tallest skyscrapers in Five - high enough that I can see the roots of the mountains. High enough to make out the sparse foliage weighing like cement atop their heads, few, but still managing to smother them.

Almost every child in Five has to make a daily commute to this building at precisely six o'clock in the morning, which results in a dogpile of classes upon classes, crowded hallways filled with multiple single-file lines of children in jumpsuits, color-coded by grade, faces identically stoic. The older kids' classes are higher up. The five-year olds on the bottom floors build with blocks and color in grids, and the eighteen-year-olds on the top floors create carefully-monitored blueprints or chemical solutions - intricate ones - to pass on to the workers in the labs and factories.

The best-performing students go on to make the rules for a living. The rest of the students go on to follow the plans they cut out for them. There are are two paths the students get separated into: chemical and engineering, but at the end of the line, the result is much the same. You either become the designer or simply a robot that has to crank out the product.

In my year, 11th year, we wear blue. And in 11th year, we learn a little bit of both. At the end of the year, we'll get split into the Chemical and Engineering divisions - then we'll get ushered off into the rest of our education, where the intensive, profession-specific studying is performed. Most of us already think we know where we're going, but it's our report cards that will be the final nail in the coffin. The best in science will go into the chemical program, and the best in mathematics will go into the engineering program. It's simple; uncomplicated. Those who perform poorly in both are among the only ones who truly get spooked about it. They simply don't know what path will be plucked for them. I suppose their fate is left up to the numbers.

I raise my eyes from an expanse of blue grid paper and look over the rows of heads to get another peek of the outside. The windows are enormous, open, gaping things that almost make the room feel swallowed by the sky as if it's floating in midair. It's a near-perfect perimeter of openness, only interrupted by the structural stone that hugs the corners. I heard there used to be giant, natural wind-carvings and orange structures of sand and stone here in my district. Big things, suffocating, dry, fascinating ones with fossils and an undying, absolutely unrelenting suffocating kind of feeling of being absolutely deserted. Dry air and invisible winters and no soil, but rocky sand hard enough to step on without ruining your shoes.

Maybe it's lush and green in Seven, but in this region of Panem, that's fantasy. Even before, when Panem was North America, what is now District Five used to be arid and dry and mountainous, unmoisturized, filled with hard succulents and prickly plants. Somehow they made it work. I heard it was quaint and happy and not so populated. I heard there was a rather folksy air to this place. Flooding has reduced the district to a desolate kind of watery, swampy, beachy area, grey and foreboding and strangely dark for all the power it produces.

The grass and sand are on the coastline, and the brushy foliage sits upon the mountains. Five is essentially a wasteland. The wide expanse of cities and cement have terraformed the entire place and have pushed the post-flood foliage far into the distance so that all that remains of the landscape can only be seen from lightyears away in only the tallest buildings. The moisture of the new climate can be felt in the air, and when it precipitates, it's either rain or it's golf ball-sized hail that makes you have to cover your head to prevent getting knocked to the ground. Never snow. The natural land is so distant that I've hardly ever seen a tree up close in my life.

It's just water and metal and glass in District Five, and even the plants that soak up the water from the sea are piled on and behind the mountains. Although the dam could be considered quite jarring, it's nothing like what I've seen in pictures of District Four. It's more like a mass of black, like a gaping hole in the earth that you could fall into. I've never seen a person go in and ever make it out. It's always been considered a form of suicide, at least by governmental standards. If anyone who chooses to take their own life has a family, that family is punished as recompense. It's a way to discourage forms of rebellion like that. Our lives belong to District Five, they say, and it's up to the Peacekeepers who gets to die early.

The city is the ugliest thing in Five, and unfortunately, that's virtually all that Five is, aside from the few cavernous lakes. The crowded buildings are the same shade of black, the chimneys atop the factories are crowned with smog, and there are Peacekeepers on every corner that are perhaps the only spots of white to be seen. Grown-ups wear their work clothing, none of it having any variation from the usual black and gray that can be found in District Five, but with the occasional black dress or button-down shirt on special occasions. I've always liked the hats the adult men wear - the ones with the brim that goes past their brows, good for keeping the hail out of their eyes in the winter; good for keeping the blazing heat off of their faces in the summer.

I've always liked the weeds that peek from the cracks in the roads lost to the maze of buildings. I always tell my dashing sister to pick the chamomile and the dandelions, especially when I can't scour the cracks in the roads and shove them into my pockets on my own. I've told people all about how they make good tea. They won't believe me even if they're drinking it. Which is good in a very selfish way of me. There won't be more than two people hunting for them.

I'll never be sure whether it's realistic of me to expect to be taught anything other than intensive blueprint mapping and Capitol history from my classes. To those who know me, it's clear which I like best. Earth science. A massive helping of literary studies, although I value it almost entirely for the exposure to creative methods of thought that the class provides.

Of course, there is the massive helping of spatial reasoning and pattern recognition that we're taught in our classes. Things that encourage us to think outside of our preconceived mental limits so we can hone our practical mindsets in the realm of engineering and chemical work. Of course, it's said chemical experimentation that I like most. The pouring, the elemental reactions, the dangerous and explosive nature of experimenting with entirely untrustworthy elements. Whatever you make, it can either benignly bubble or cause a noxious fume that can knock someone down in minutes.

Nonetheless, there are very, very particular instructions for exactly the kinds of measurements you have to make, exactly the kinds of bottles you can be seen touching, and things as trivial as the way you can breathe. No matter how compassionate the teacher, they can only overlook so much before they're discovered letting their students make their own conclusions. The most proficient students can do that once they graduate, and only if they're chosen to be the makers and not the workers. They're the ones who engineer their own chemicals; the ones who create some of the ingenious methods the workers have to follow. There isn't enough hands-on practice for my taste; there aren't nearly enough opportunities to squirrel away materials.

The teachers are usually facing us in our classroom, roaming up and down the class in the gap between our two groups, looking very uniform and proper in their government-issued jumpsuits. They issue every student two jumpsuits a year, both the color of their grade, both fitted with zippers and pockets around the waist - pockets I like to stuff with goodies when they take the worn-out, reused practice materials and dispose of them. It's good for me. I've managed to figure out when and where they do it, and Sarah and I can hoard them and trade them like currency. We use them to buy things that we need and things that we don't need.

I've no clue how the merchants manage to get their hands on honey anywhere further from the boundaries closest to the Capitol, but Sarah likes it in her tea, so I've learned how to smuggle it in my jumpsuit just to see her wink at me with her naturally beady little eyes, pushing strands of her short-cut red hair behind her ear and repeating after me when I tell her, "Shh." She's more like me than is healthy for her, not that I mind it at all. My eyes are blue and her eyes are brown, but what's life without a little variety?

I'd have to pay much more than spare parts and stolen chemicals if any Peacekeeper ever got a whiff of that funny business. Not that it's scandalous, not that it's harmful, not that it's severe. I wouldn't deserve the punishment I'd get even if I did get caught taking old supplies from the classroom. But luckily, I've happened to gather enough cleverness not to get discovered. I pretend to keep my eyes in front of me and my chin held straight, but I suppose there's a reason Erik and Joules call me Foxface besides the rather odd way I look. I asked her once, and I could see myself in the reflective glass of the building behind her as we sat eating our sanctioned sandwiches. I could see my own long red hair and pointed nose; my big bug eyes, my thin lips, and the alert expression I, for some reason, was probably born with. I suppose my own fox features were technically staring me right in the face.

"We always gotta watch our backs around you. Never know if you're gonna turn on us," she said facetiously, her eyes widened in false fear. The streaks of brown hair fell into her face and made her look like a madwoman. I remember cackling because I was caught off-guard by how outrageous and accurate her observation was. I was unable to take that stupid smirk off of my face for the rest of that day, and I suppose I never quite forgot it.

Joules was most certainly exaggerating the truth about how she and Erik felt, but I was a little surprised at just how accurate she happened to be. Perhaps I hope I lived up to her feigned fears about me. I knew the value of my own well-being over others', and I knew that sometimes sacrifices needed to be taken at others' expense. It was a fact of life that some things needed to be done even despite the soft spot you might have in your brain, and I was as relieved as I was terrified that I had recognized the value of being able to quiet your conscience. Not that I would consistently be able to. Of course, there were some things I would never sacrifice. Sarah comes to mind. I doubt I'd be able to betray her if I tried.

I've never had any doubt that I'll make it into the chemical program and graduate into the group that gets to make the rules. I've never wanted anything more, except for a more fancy roof to put over my sister's head, more honey to put in her milk, more chamomile tea that, at that point, we won't have to pick out of the ground. Chemists get to move closer to the Capitol, where District Five borders the city and nestles up against it, feeding off of its privileges and growing fancier and fancier the closer it goes. When I become a chemist, Sarah and I can move into a high-rise. I can get her the fanciest rugs I can afford, the sparkliest showers she can bathe in, the biggest beds with the coziest sheets. Maybe even her very own dog.

The closer I get to the chemical program, the closer I get to getting smarter. I like to fill my brain with as many things as possible. As many facts, poems, chemicals, patterns, methods, experiments as I can, because goodness knows you can never get enough of it if you're going to avoid the life of monotony that so many people are doomed to in Five.

It's quite obvious to me that they try their very best to keep our brains in a box, but I suppose I've never liked to think in terms of rebellion. Reaching out of the tight little box would almost certainly spell punishment for anyone tenacious enough to do it.

For now, as long as I'm stuck in this school, I'm glad that I have food. That much I can say. Most of the kids in my class do. If they take tesserae, there likely won't be a soul in the school that doesn't know about it. We keep our mouths shut about those things, save for quick whispers and sad glances at the poor kid who's had to take it. Bullying or picking on one-another is strictly prohibited - there will be no power structure or intimidation beyond that which is dealt by Peacekeepers.

The only real non-school related conversation they do allow is about an hour of discussion about those who have been reaped. Of course, that is closely officiated by the school heads as well. A large courtyard behind the school, big enough to host enough standing room for the entire student body. A speaker here, a speaker there, and a single microphone. Our headmaster usually stands in front of us on the small stage and raves positively about the two lucky chosen students and how their performance was in school; how there will surely be a victor among them.

When our tributes lose their lives, there is no such fanfare. In fact, the teachers are allowed to make a single tightly-scripted address to their students - only once - after which any discussion about the tributes goes mostly unspoken. After six years of going without a victor, the hope of a good Games performance has all but waned completely.

It really isn't a common occurrence to hear anything good about the Games anymore. Starry Cordènez was the first volunteer from Five in thirty years, hearkening from a wealthier area close to the Capitol. She and her family were no strangers to hard work. She had made a living and had it all together before she raised her hand and shocked the district. The only excuse she had had for herself was that she was bored of building solar panels and making diagrams. She wanted to "honor District Five in a special way."

The Capitol ate it up. A gorgeous brown-skinned dark horse with a rich pre-Panem heritage as thick and luminous as her character. The Capitol thought she couldn't have been more marketable had it created her itself. District Five was skeptical, but when she got closer to the end, whooping in her glory with her district partner, everyone started to eat up the attention. I remember it. Girls in school were braiding their hair overnight so they could adopt her beautiful curls, the Hunger Games were becoming a hot topic of discussion, and everyone wanted milk-and-coffee skin like hers.

Then Joseph died. Joseph Roach. Thin, but stronger than he looked. Stout, but long-limbed. Dark-haired, dark-skinned. Told jokes like the best of them. He seemed to shine the most when he was alongside Starry. They'd take out people in each-other's paths, work off of each-other's strengths, laugh at each-other's jokes and banter. They had a special way of communicating silently, willing each-other with their eyes. They just _worked_.

And, truth be told, if it hadn't been for Starry, Joseph Roach likely would have been lost on his own just like every other Five tribute who didn't have a plan. But Starry was in it to make sure one of them won those games. He knew he could count on her to be a loyal teammate. He told her that in the end, if it was just the two of them, that would be good enough for him. They'd pull straws. Whoever lost the draw would do the deed themself, just to keep the peace. Starry said she agreed.

They never got the chance. She could hardly keep her composure when the Seven boy slit Joseph's throat. I guess it was when Starry threw that javelin into the boy's chest, unthinking, uncaring, just mad and vengeful and fending for her district, that she became truly beloved to Five.

In the days after Starry's Games ended, the celebration in Five was _alive_. Lights hung in between the buildings, candy was provided by the Capitol, and there was beautiful, brilliant confetti for four entire days. I remember being eleven and foolishly spinning in the glittering downpour. I vividly recall hearing the District Five folk songs and dancing like a wild child, stomping my feet and swishing my hair. Back then, Sarah was only three years old. She was covered in baby fat, and even though she couldn't quite keep her balance, she just couldn't stop stomping along with the music. She had the prettiest smile I'd ever seen - and she still does. Her little brown eyes glittered like fireflies in the celebratory string lights and we laughed and laughed and laughed.

Starry is as wild a spirit now as when she volunteered, and after her games, that spirit was absolutely infectious. People wanted to be like her, people wanted to have her loyalty and her strength, her sense of community. That wasn't so bad at first, until it became another propaganda tool. People started to see the Games as a good thing - as something other than a perversion of how the world should ever be. They started following Starry's lead in catering to the Capitol, feeding them their willingness to participate and their eagerness to play the Games. It was when copycat volunteers came in the next year - and the next - that people started realizing that maybe Starry was the exception; maybe Five wasn't a winning district. Because those volunteers didn't come back.

For a while, District Five looked like a dark horse candidate. The volunteers we had weren't all that bad until they were slaughtered. One by one, they fell. Gutted by Two's Cassius Irons in the 70th. Burned alive by Stella Tackemby in the 69th.

Without a doubt, there _was_ something to be said for the Five pair from the 69th.

When Toula Jackson was thrown into the pit of fire, screaming and flailing and sobbing his name, Richard Kolloran roared his final cry and thrust the entirety of his red-hot blade into the soft spot under Stella's chin as she laughed at him. He was immediately picked off by her district partner, the archer from One, but he'd died reflecting the precedent of loyalty and district pride that Starry had set. They'd both made the top six. By the time they were killed, they'd taken one Career with them. That year's outlier Victor from Ten spoke her praises of Richard's nobility shortly before she became a recluse.

But that was the last time a pair from Five ever made it that far. In the following years, the Five tributes, all reaped, have been stoic, motivated, and tenacious.

Lately, the escorts have been reaping twelve-year-olds. Most of them have been bloodbaths. One of them was admittedly precocious and plucky, but was killed nonetheless. I suspect something is rigged, because after Richard's sacrifice, the volunteers stopped completely. It's peculiar, that. Even despite the steady decline in morale, I've personally encountered an abundance of children who wish to volunteer.

I suppose that far too many of the prospective volunteers simply wish to avenge the hundreds of Five children who've been murdered before them. An act of solidarity unlike those of Districts One and Two - driven not by blind patriotism, but by resentment.

Now, there's nothing left to do but fear. I worry I've grown used to it.


End file.
